Security is often described as a continuum between convenience and safety. A system that requires ten layers of security may be very difficult to attack, but it may also be so inconvenient to maintain that it may be impractical. At the opposite end, a system with no security at all is highly convenient to maintain and use but also highly insecure. Protecting networks with perimeter-only firewalls is more convenient than using more thorough defensive measures, but may also be inadequate against many increasingly prevalent forms of attack. Many data centers are becoming more and more segmented, meaning that servers and data within a single network may require many different levels of security. Providing sufficient security to segments of resources on a network may place a significant burden on Information Technology (IT) resources. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved systems and methods for automatically applying firewall policies within data center applications.